Tech Thoughts: Keeping up with tech in 2024
I share a short summary regularly with thoughts on tech, suggested articles , angel investing work, portfolio announcements, and book recommendations. Feel free to join me on the journey
“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them”
Alfred North Whitehead
Tech Thoughts: How to keep up with tech in 2024?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I would teach my kids about technology, especially given that technology is moving so fast that often I find myself completely out-of-date in most fields
How can we ensure that we stay on-top of the relevant technology topics, without drowning in the noise?
Tracking technology really feels like drinking from a firehose most days
I’ve structured a few thoughts on frameworks that I try to follow in order to keep up:
Focus on what really matters in YOUR field. You can’t track everything
Find the thinkers in your field, and actively engage with them e.g. on Twitter (yes, still calling it that), LinkedIn, Reddit, Substack, other newsletters. “Standing on the shoulders of giants” is a pretty good strategy to get started, though careful not to get caught in "Group Think”
Focus on the bottlenecks in a field, where a new technology will be disruptive and not just incremental (“iPhone moments”, rather than a 5% faster delivery of your groceries)
Become more technical - no escaping digging deep into the fields you work in. If you work in software, even if it’s in Finance or Sales, you need to get your hands dirty with your company’s tech. Here’s a good start: “How to Excel in Tech Without Learning How to Code”
Monitor startups. Startups are usually the first movers on disruptive tech. Most of them will fail, but aggregating the signal from a broad range of startups should give a good indication. I use sources like Product Hunt, AngelList, VC announcements, angel syndicates, and private deal flow for this
Help founders. Even if I’m not a VC, I try to set aside time every week to speak with new founders. Whether it is to invest through a syndicate, learn about a new product, or simply to see if I can help out, new founders are probably my best source of information when it comes to new technologies; their opportunities, and their challenges (!). Speaking with founders can raise some early flags on where a market is in the “Hype Cycle”
Back to where this post started, I’m not suggesting the above is what we teach our kids, but I do think we should spend more time encouraging our kids to both think critically, imaginatively, and to focus on the potential outcomes as new technologies come along.
Previous generations have been taught to think incrementally (E.g. do you focus on “continuous improvement”) rather than non-linearity. This has worked great in the past, but with disruptive technologies the outcomes are becoming increasingly asymmetric, and we need to adjust our thinking accordingly
What I’m Learning
Strategy & Product Development
Transformation Defined - by Marty Cagan
The Product Model at Spotify - by Marty Cagan and Joakim Sundén
In Defense of Strategy - by Packy McCormick
AI & Software
Knowledge Graphs & LLMs: Harnessing Large Language Models with Neo4j - by Neo4j, Oskar Hane
Beyond Text And Images: How Generative AI Enriches Analytics - by Zapata AI
How Quantum Science Enhances Generative AI - by Zapata AI
The New Threat to a Data Leader's Career - by Tomasz Tunguz
AI’s $200B Question - by Sequoia
Science & Technology
Epigenetic clock: a promising mirror of ageing - by The Lancet
Portfolio Updates
AEON BIOTECHNOLOGIES - now out of “stealth” and officially LIVE
After a long-wait, AEON is officially live with their epigenetic tests for biological age measurements.
Delivering to the EU/EEA, with certified testing in partnership with AgeLabs.
Being able to measure the impact of my lifestyle and diet on my overall health and biological age has been something I’ve been looking for for a very long time, and I’m excited to be a small part of the cap table of Aeon as we follow their mission to measure and improve health span
Book Recommendation
The Three Body Problem - by Cixin Liu
What would humanity be without Science?
What would happen if our technological progress stopped?
And how would we fare against an external threat if political and economic turmoil prevented our scientific progress as a species?
This was one of my favourite SciFi books of 2023. It primarily looks at the impact of first contact between Earth and an alien civilization, set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution and a complex virtual world
It highlights the importance of science and technology on Human Progress, and the essentiality of rational human thought
About Author: After training as a robotics engineer, I spent nearly a decade as a consultant working on strategy development for global corporations and startups
Now I spend my time strategizing on the Future of Tech, building systems to faster identify and understand new technologies, and thinking about how new technologies will impact sectors and business models across industries
You can also find me and more of my thinking on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Website